


The Infinite Expanse

by Mutharus



Category: SpongeBob SquarePants (Cartoon)
Genre: Abstract, Ambiguity, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depressing, Funny, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 12:06:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18590956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mutharus/pseuds/Mutharus





	The Infinite Expanse

Squidward disappeared one day. It's funny how the absence of someone's familiar, routine negativity is distressing, for then it can only originate from oneself. Patrick said that he saw him exit his house in the dead of night, and then vanish beyond the wild hills. He was a perfidious opportunist—hardly trustworthy—but his story was the only one available for consideration.

The ambiguity surrounding Squidward's disappearance had infected Bikini Bottom with a vague anxiety of unimaginable evil; people don't just wander off into the wilderness; something must have happened to him. The house that once exuded pure, artistic passion was revealed to be nothing more than an unfeeling, cold monument, separating other monuments. Of course, houses are seldom constructed to suit a particular individual, rather they progressively adopt the character of their occupier, ultimately forming a shared identity between man and structure. You are reminded of this truth when a stranger takes the place of a long-time neighbour. It's as unnatural as a reanimated corpse, but your long-time neighbour simply moved away, and is now occupying a new structure.

Strong currents obscured any prints that may have been left in the sediment, complicating matters for the search crew. About two weeks had passed when they called off the search. One afternoon there was a box truck, and it got filled up with everything that had been inside Squidward's house: paintings, instruments, books, furniture; everything Squidward owned and personally placed had been gone in a matter of hours and promptly dumped in a landfill. Someone put up a For Sale Sign up when no one was looking.

It seemed that the world was engineered from the ground up on the ideals of hindrance—that joy was something to be earned through imbalanced misery, and that personal endeavours were perpetually ensnared in a manufactured conflict between time and money. But Bikini Bottom's cruel artifices were just that: lies, reified by a vulgar belief in their authority and necessity. These fish had every capacity to survive beyond the city state, just as they had done for many millions of years, they had merely forgotten how.

The left eye lit up.


End file.
